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Basically, a place of accommodation that kills its customers and robs their corpses. For unknown reasons, this turns up a lot in French literature/works set in France. Sometimes, to "get more bang for the buck," the proprietors will "serve" their guests as well. One wonders how these places advertise and attract guests/victims, other than the possible curiosity if rumors of their crimes are publicized. See also Hell Hotel and Inn Security, although in the latter, attacks on guests are generally not by the inn's owners.

In The Sandman issue "The Hunt," the protagonist of the story-within-a-story stops for the night in an inn like this. He survives; it's heavily implied that the innkeeper doesn't.

One Warhammer Fantasy comic has its hero, a Sigmarite Witch Hunter, stay at an inn like this but is smart enough not to trust the innkeeper. Turns out the entire town has dedicated itself to Nurgle.

Parodied in Smax when he visits his homeworld that lampoons fairytale tropes. The health department won't let the inkeeper charge any higher because Robyn's room has a pea under her mattresses and the innkeeper will come in to Smax's room and stretch him if he's too short or cut him if he's too tall like in the Theseus myth mentioned below.

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Films — Live-Action

The hotel in Vacancy has owners who use the hotel to make films of their grisly murders.

The 1992 Hong Kong action film Dragon Inn features Maggie Cheung as the innkeeper at a remote inn where she occasionally seduces the guests, murders them, carves them up, and makes them into meals for the other patrons.

A variation of this occurs in Stardust, when the witch Lamia builds an inn out of magic for the express purpose of luring the heroine there so she can cut out her heart. Although she fails to kill her intended victim, she does kill and rob the only other patron who happens to show up at her inn that night; the party who was following them turns up the next morning to find the dead man naked in a bathtub, and no trace of the magical inn.

Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons features a large, remote inn in the mountains run by Zhu Bajie, where any unsuspecting guest is killed and made as stuffing to spice up the large roast pigs for the next guest to come along, all covered up by illusions. The protagonist and a demon hunter barely make it out despite being able to see through the illusions.

The Abaddon Hotel is rumored to be one before it is abandoned years before the events of the film take place.

In the sequel Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel, it's very much the exception for people to leave the hotel instead of the rule. A handful of thrillseekers seem to survive but most don't. Former guests are stuck in the hotel, never able to leave.

Literature

The short story "The Red Inn" by Honoré de Balzac is a good example, and was filmed twice as a horror comedy, even closer to this trope.

Used to real Shoot the Shaggy Dog effect in Camus' story "The Inn", which he also wrote as a play titled Cross Purposes. In brief, a guy abandons his family at a young age and then comes home rich to the inn run by his mother and sister with the intent of bettering their lives. They don't recognize him and have gotten in the habit of killing and robbing customers. They do this to him, discover who he was, and suicides ensue.

In Alexander Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo" one of the antagonists, Caderousse, owns an inn of ill reputation. When he receives a diamond from the Count he immediately runs after a jeweler. The jeweler gives him money for the diamond, but has to spend a night in the inn due to bad weather. Caderousse, influenced by his greedy wife, decides to murder the jeweler, so he would have both the money and diamond. He succeeds, but in the ensued fight his wife gets murdered and later Caderousse gets caught.

Wilkie Collins' story "A Terribly Strange Bed" is a famous example, and is set in Paris, and has an inn which is in cahoots with a crooked gambling den.

Joseph Conrad's story "The Inn of the Two Witches" has a similar premise and an identical method of killing customers. This similarity may have been an accident, the product of both authors hearing similar traveler's tales.

William Hope Hodgson wrote a story titled "The Inn of the Black Crow" which again, has a similar plot and murder method. This story was anthologized in The Mammoth Book of Historical Detectives, where the editor commented something like "no points for guessing the writer Hodgson was plagiarizing."

Sbirro's restaurant in mystery writer Stanley Ellin's short story "The Specialty of the House", also adapted as an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

In Isaac Bashevis Singer's Stories for Children, one story, "The Fearsome Inn", tells of an inn run by a married couple of two witches/demons who would lure and trap lost travelers.

Roald Dahl's story "The Landlady", although in this case, the killer is simply psycho rather than greedy.

In a short story by Frank Herbert, a honeymooning couple on their way to Vegas become trapped in a hotel which imprisons gamblers. Although it doesn't actively attempt to kill them, no-one has ever left.

In the H.P. Lovecraft short story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", the residents of Innsmouth attempt to break into the narrator's room at the Inn to kill him, presumably to keep the secrets of the town hidden from outsiders. (Or even worse, they recognize something in him he doesn't yet know about..) The narrator actually references the trope in the story, wondering if it is one of those hotels where travelers are slain for money (despite his obviously lack of excessive prosperity) and his preparation is what allows him to escape the inn and then the town.

Lampshaded and Subverted then Inverted in The Black Company series (The White Rose). A wayside inn is taken over by deserters from the Lady's army. Croaker refers to them as Trapdoor Spiders. The remnant of the Company stays the night, scouting the Deserters as they, in turn attempt to scout the company, and are allowed on their way. The Deserters attack on the road the next day, and get counter ambushed by the squad mages.

The hero of Larry Niven's Destiny's Road hears a tale about an inn that was run by escaped prisoners who killed and ate travelers. This is a bit jarring, since he was one of the escaped prisoners, and while they didn't do anything illegal there except steal the power to run the place, it does mean the authorities might be aware he survived his escape from prison.

Practically every inn in Water Margin seems to murder and rob its customers at least some of the time. Given Grey And Gray morality of the novel, several of these innkeepers are among the heroes of the story.

The Don't Go Inn in Galaxy of Fear. Well, if you see the sign and don't leave within the day it's likely too late. The ground eats people; the whole planet sort of serves as the "inn". In this case the slow rate of very carefully concealed disappearances and the friendly Enzeem work to make sure a small but not insignificant number of people stop by.

Das Wirtshaus im Spessart ("The inn in the Spessart") by Wilhelm Hauff - a mixed group of travellers have to stay the night in a creepy inn in the Spessart forest and discover it is a den of a gang of robbers and highwaymen. One of them is sent out to fetch help from the military while the others barricade themselves in a room. To stay awake, they take turns telling fairy tales and other stories. This framing story was turned into a successful West German movie in the 1950s (with two sequels) leaving out the fairy tales.

The eponymous pub in the Jonathan Creek episode "Mother Redcap." A bit of a subversion though, as these were planned murders of specific individuals who the landlord had taken money to 'get rid of'

In the fifth series of Supernatural , a hotel sprung up in the middle of nowhere, which trapped tourists in order to feed them to the gods. The gods were there to discuss what to do about Lucifer's return.

CSI: "Check In and Check Out" features a modern take on the trope, with a particular room in a sleazy motel where five brutal murders take place in a space of weeks. It turns out the voyeuristic owner has been dosing the guests in that particular room with LSD to observe the results, which are often fatal.

The Blue Öyster Cult may refer to this in the concept of Conroy's Bar in Before the Kiss - Conroy's may be a place where vampires gather for a convivial social drink...

In the song Astronomy, the Four Winds Bar may well be a place that people enter but do not leave - or at least not by the same door... not necessarily because of malevolent intent, but because you might go in through a door on Earth, realise the four winds Bar stands outside time and space, and you cannot find the door again...

Four doors at the Four Winds Bar; Two doors locked and windows barred, One door left to take you in, The other one just mirrors it...

L'Auberge Sanglante, a song by Malicorne, is about a traveler ending up in one such inn. Fortunately for him, he escapes the death trap with the help of a young maid.

There are Chinese tales about bandit-run inns who serve human meat, although this trope is likely to pop up in any culture where people travel. One of these was named "Three Cups and you cannot cross the Mountain," referring to their rice wine-based house drink, which rendered travellers unconscious and ready for butchering.

Likewise, Japan has myths about a mysterious "Sparrow's Inn," where shapeshifting birds lure humans in and kill them in their sleep, presumably to eat them.

The original Sweeney Todd legend fits this pretty well, as do its adaptations.

One of the later miracles attributed to St. Nicholas has him raising to life three boys/young men who were killed and placed in a pickling barrel by an innkeeper during a famine.

Several examples in Ravenloft, notably how the Mindefisk sisters made their living.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventure module The Apocalypse Stone. The devil prince Moloch is following the players so he can get revenge on them. He has his minions slaughter everyone in an inn and then cast an illusion over the place so that when the party arrives everything looks normal. The minion in disguise offers the party food, mentioning the inn's special pork buns, and after they eat he asks if they want to stay the night. When they wake up in the morning they're all laying on beds of spikes and razors and when they come downstairs they see that the inn is a bloody mess. There is one table set with a tray of pork buns with a note on it that hints at exactly what was in the buns...

There's a house on an island in the middle of nowhere. When the party gets in, they are served food by invisible servants, and have beds prepared. If they agree to such treatment, rather than violently wreck the place on first sight, they wake up groggy and weak, for they only consumed illusions of food - to fight a horde of hungry spirit creatures.

In Avernum 3: exploring further east than the quests provide any need to will bring your party to an isolated town that appears unpopulated and undisturbed, except for a sickly odor, difficult to identify. A single inhabitant welcomes you to his Inn.

Breath of Fire II has the Wildcat Cafe, in which you are politely instructed to discard your equipment, pick up your utensils and season yourself liberally, culminating in a fight with the chef after a trip across a hot grill. Partly subverted in that the Wildcat Cafe is happy to serve patrons who are strong enough to fight their way in. They serve everybody else, too...

The Ultra-Luxe Casino (which includes hotel facilities) is rumored to be this in Fallout: New Vegas. In reality, the only cannibals are Mortimer and a small group of his followers, who want to return the White Glove Society to its old customs. The rest are okay.

One turns up in Jade Empire. With a slight twist- everyone apart from the cook is actually a mutant cannibal creature disguised by magic; they keep the human cook around to make things seem more "normal."

There was one in Suikoden, but they were actually members of the resistance. Imagine their surprise when they accidentally poison the hero's party, which resistance leader Odessa is a member of.

The Stumbling Sabrecat Tavern in Fort Dunstad, Skyrim. The fact that it is located in a bandit fort could be enough of a warning; however, the bandits in the fort tend to keep to themselves when you approach and enter the tavern, only going aggro when you try to leave. If/when the fort is cleared and reoccupied by the military, soldiers put an end to this business and block the very entrance to the tavern with spiked barriers.

The Rusty Lake Hotel from the Cube Escape series invites 5 guests to the hotel for a week. It is your job to make sure they are properly "served" during their stay.

The "Sparrow's Inn" folktale is referenced in Touhou with Mystia Lorelei, a night sparrow youkai. People going through the forest are often struck with night-blindness, when they come across her grilled-lamprey stand she tells them her lampreys can cure this condition (lamreys having eight eyes, they actually were thought to heal blindness). Naturally, she's the one who caused the blindness in the first place (as seen in her boss battle, where she causes the visible screen to shrink to a small circle around the player) and just has to lift the curse after they give her money.

"Yes we have a vacancy, and we've got showers in all the rooms. What's that?! Will you excuse me? Coming, Mother!

The motel Taz and Bushwacker Bob stay at in the Taz-Mania episode "A Midsummer Night's Scream".

Porky Pig and Sylvester check into a hotel full of murderous mice in the Looney Tunes short Claws for Alarm.

Real Life

From The Other Wiki article on Cave-In-Rock, Illinois: Isaiah L. Potts operated Potts Inn on the Ford's Ferry Road in Illinois, where travelers checked in, but sometimes failed to check out. It's noted in the Life Treasury of American Folklore p. 123: "Potts succeeded in persuading travelers to remain all night at his inn. Tradition says many a man took his last drink at Pott's Spring and spent his last hour on Earth in Pott's House."

There was supposedly an inn called The Ostrich in Colnbrook, Berkshire, England where the owner and his wife would put rich guests into a special room with a trapdoor in the floor by the bed. When the guest was sleeping the bed would lift up, sliding them through the trapdoor into boiling ale, and then the owners would steal all their belongings.

There's a Pennsylvania version set on Hawk Mountain about one Matthias Schaumbaucher, who in the post-Civil War period would bump off the odd wanderer for their goods. His misdeeds were only discovered when he confessed on his deathbed and damaged human skulls were found in a well on the property.

While not involving murder on the premises, there were a number of old inns around Britain where the innkeeper would inform local highwaymen whenever a rich customer stayed the night, so they could be robbed a few miles on after they left.

Raya and Sakina, the first women to be executed in modern Egypt (1921), run such an inn for travelling women in Alexandria and killed their guests to rob them of their money and jewels.

The Inn of Peyrebeille in France, nicknamed "L'auberge rouge" ("Red Inn") was the site of an alleged criminal affair. The two owners, Pierre and Marie Martin, helped by their employee Jean Rochette, supposedly murdered a traveller and threw his body in a river nearby. They were also accused of up to fifty other murders, as well many rapes and cannibalism, but none of these were considered seriously at the trial, and some scholars have expressed doubts that any crime happened at all.

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